


White

by Mun Kiri (NekoAisu)



Series: Asks [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Childbirth, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/Mun%20Kiri
Summary: For the ask:Regis/Clarus mourning Aulea (sry for angst omg)





	White

Regis isn’t quite sure when it truly hit him. He’s stared at her, tired and drained even as she cradled Noctis, their one and only son, and barely even heard the monitors begin to scream. He’d been so careful, doting on her as he knew he should, leaving little things everywhere that he knew she liked (even with pregnancy messing up nearly all her usual tics), and making time to always be there with her at least just overnight. 

She’s still smiling, victorious as she holds their boy in arms strengthened out of spite. She’d never been one to back down from a challenge. 

The nurses are already checking her vitals, careful about jostling Noctis where he sleeps against her breast. There’s a lull in the chaos just long enough for Clarus to place a hand on his shoulder and say, “It’s up to you, now, Regis.”

There’s a soft apology to his voice, like he’d seen this once before and  _oh, he had._ Gladiolus’s birth had been turbulent, but Aulea was so much worse. Anemone had been able to pull through by sheer force of will, but she’d still barely made it. 

Aulea was made of tougher stuff than Regis himself (and he’d readily admit that), but she’d been broken down slowly by problems in both pregnancy and court. Noctis had proven to be the final nail in the coffin, the queen desperate to see him into the world even at the cost of her own life. 

Doctors cut between the nurses to administer curatives in careful doses, but Aulea dosn’t stir. Noctis is whisked off her and handed to a nurse, waking up near immediately and beginning to scream. He isn’t the sort to cry. 

Clarus shoves an IV bag into Regis’s hands and curls them around the pouch of saline. His eyes are pinched with worry and fear, voice tight enough it nearly breaks as he commands, “Do your duty, Regis. Care for your people and protect your family as you did mine.”

But his magic rebels, sputters and spits ever fiercer the more he heeds it to obey. The saline barely glows, even as Aulea fades ever faster on the hospital bed. He forces one more burst into it, feeling the familiar tearing of his insides to accommodate a power not meant for mortals, bones vibrating and nerves sparking with pain in the aftermath. 

He passes the solution to a nurse who hangs it up and attaches it to Aulea’s IV line via a drip. 

They wait, carefully and quietly, for a sign. 

The monitors have gone silent. A sorrowful nurse carefully presses the plunger ever downwards to administer an emergency supplement of saturated elixir. The glow suffuses through the tube and into Aulea’s arm like a too-slow prayer, divine intervention only after the fact. 

Nothing happens. 

The incision from the caesarian doesn’t begin to stitch back up, her skin doesn’t even begin to regain some measure of color. The monitors are silent. 

Throughout it all, Noctis does not stop screaming. 

* * *

When the Marilith nearly takes Noctis from him, Regis clings tightly to his magic and forces it to bend to his will. No gods will save them. They don’t care for their Kings. 

Clarus has to shake him out of his own mind time and time again, caught up on how much Noctis looks like Aulea (how they’d both be stolen from him by his own hand. He had long since begun to hate the Astrals). They’d moved on from the stark white of mourning long ago, but Regis had never forgotten how Aulea looked in her shroud. He felt her now, always peering over his shoulder and helping him along, even as he began to falter and fall in earnest. 

He is haunted. 

When Anemone barely manages to make it to the end of her term with Iris, Clarus begins to look much the same. Three weeks later and they’re back in white again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at/with me on:  
> Tumblr: Kiriami-sama  
> Twitter: FlamingAceKiri


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